That sickening feeling when you think you had a can of clear coat enamel in your hand only to find it is really yellow. I guess this project gets a do over.
Scott Smith
Please feel free to add your own sickening things to the list.
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The loco you are working on has a short that damages the circuit boards...
When righty tightly becomes righty loosey ……😳
Pat
This Thread is a hoot...
When you reassembled the passenger car and found two more screws...
Stripping the head of a small hex head screw using the wrong sized nut driver. Adding a working scale Kadee to doublehead two Lionel B&A Berks. . They usually feature a small Phillips screw. These had hex screws maybe for a better appearance. Very shallow head and I had a Whia metric driver that seemed to fit. Rounded the head instantly. Figured out that it was 1/8 not whatever mm I picked up. Simple fix was to just convert the other one to the trailing engine and deal with it another time.
After about a year later. I took the pilot off and drilled down into the screw. Brought some very small Snap On 1/4 drive Torx bits home from work. They make great easy outs. Came out easy enough and replaced it with a Philips head.
When you paint the plastic roof of your Lionel “Mom’s Diner” and a bit later, as the roof starts to melt, realize that the paint you used contained acetone. 😬
Curt
When you see something at a train show that you want or need only to pass on it because you think it's too much money. Then, you walk around the show and think about it. You go back, only to find the item had just been sold!
When your beloved new locomotive purchase flies off the tracks and onto the concrete floor because you forgot about something you left on the tracks yesterday when you were scenicking...
@James Brown posted:When your beloved new locomotive purchase flies off the tracks and onto the concrete floor because you forgot about something you left on the tracks yesterday when you were scenicking...
been there , done that!
You are tapping a hole and you hear a snap and the tap handle swings free.
Pete
@Just Havin' Fun posted:When you see something at a train show that you want or need only to pass on it because you think it's too much money. Then, you walk around the show and think about it. You go back, only to find the item had just been sold!
Been there done that (more than once!). Learned not to do the show walk-around first to "think about it." 
When you buy a piece of rolling stock at a train show only to find you already own one just like it when you get home.
When you just receive a new locomotive that you ordered a year ago, and 2 forum members have the same one and it doesn't work.😒
When your cat decides to become a model railroader
@Mooner posted:When you buy a piece of rolling stock at a train show only to find you already own one just like it when you get home.
That shows you have impeccable taste. I have several like that
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When you buy a interesting set of cars at a show or shop, thinking you can find the loco and extra cars elsewhere real easy...
When you think everything is fixed, power up the loco, and it smokes! ( from the wrong spot!!!
)
When the new "matching" car doesn't match the rest of the paint on the previous issued cars.
Jhz563
Doing that now with a junker prewar steamer that I repaired. Trying to recreate the catalog set that went with it. Ugh.
When your brand new train comes in and you unbox it, and find parts at the bottom of the box…
When your brand new train is delivered but not to your house…
When a tiny necessary part that matches the color of the room's carpet or flooring falls to the floor.
When your wife finds out how many trains you really own.
@CSXJOE posted:When your wife finds out how many trains you really own.
Yep..... I cleared out a bunch of empty boxes last summer and put them up in the attic. The wife was looking for something in the basement the other day. Comes upstairs and says " I thought you put all the empty train boxes up in the attic already"
And we think we are so smart........
# 2 The disappearing parts.
# 3 When you hear a crash on the floor behind you and realize your shirt sleeve just sent a 0-6-0 steamer to the floor....
Bob
@Norton posted:You are tapping a hole and you hear a snap and the tap handle swings free.
OUCH! I can identify with this one, and it was a PITA to get the broken tap out of the hole!
Your layout is in the basement and you wake up to hear the sump pump running.
You have several locomotives of the same type(N&W J Class) and you buy a different set of passengers cars for each one only to find you already had enough sets for each locomotive and the one you bought is a duplicate.
It is raining really hard and it sounds like you have a waterfall beneath your room in the basement... which is also where your layout is located. That window had to be resealed 3 times before it finally stopped pouring it in on every heavy rain...
You buy your son a NIB train he wants for Christmas and put it on your Christmas layout around midnight Christmas Eve. When you power it up it doesn't move...
Or when you are repairing something and you hear the spring that makes everything work go boing and you have no idea where it landed.
Tony
@CSXJOE posted:When your wife finds out how many trains you really own.
And/Or how much you really spent on your trains...
When you've been gone for a week and arrive home and open the door to the smell of wet plaster and water. To find the water pipe in the bedroom ceiling has sprung a pin hole leak and the water is to thirds of the way down the hall headed to the kitchen.
In many previous posts I've mentioned that much of my collection was inherited from my Grandfather who just lived across town from me.
The winter before he passed (that next spring) I was on a business trip to the Midwest and called home from the hotel one night. My wife said that Grandpop's furnace had caught fire and the fire dept. had to come and put it out. His layout was right next to the furnace! Needless that was a sickening call.
Some tinplate landed on the floor, and everything got a good coat of black oily soot. It was my and my daughter's responsibility to pack up the collection after his passing and our hands were black for weekends packing trains.
Now years later and I still haven't gotten to clean up everything. Many different techniques had to be learned in cleaning, considering if original finish or repaint, prewar, postwar. Most everything has to be at least partially disassembled to clean inside and out. Some pieces got pretty banged up and still need refinishing.
When your wife, who to this point in time has exhibited absolutely no interest in your hobby, decides to read through the Lionel catalogue you accidentally left on the coffee table and finds out how much you really spend on trains; or
When your wife invites your obnoxious brother-in-law, whom you now dislike even more, over for Thanksgiving and he plugs up the upstairs toilet causing a massive leak in the basement right over the brand new 11 siding staging yard you've just completed after working on it for over three years.
(Not that I would have first-hand knowledge about either of these.) 
When going around a sharp corner, on the drive home from the hardware store, with a newly purchased, $cheap$ can of mis-blended paint, you hear said can tip over on the floor with a “splut glug!”sound…
When you buy an item at a show and begin to think about a half hour later, "I might already have one of these?"
...after years of searching flea markets and auctions finally find that old set of decals...complete/original...not cheap, either...that will complete your scratchbuilt effort lying in wait.
Either believing you live life with limitless karma...or forgetting the advice you read some time ago re adding a fresh clear film coat...you immerse the all-important logo and letterboard decals in water...
...Then watch as they float to the surface in a bazillion fragments...like pepper flake confetti celebrating release from bondage!
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You are sitting at a outside table at York, eating a funnel cake. Then a large gust of wind, picks up your paper plate, filled with powered sugar and carry's it across the table and landing on a elderly gentleman dressed in a dark blue suit.
@MIKATT1 posted:When your cat decides to become a model railroader
When your cat decides to jump on the workbench and "help" during a delicate project...
Mitch
